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The Bulwark (Once Again) Endorses a Democrat
The “Reagan conservatives” at The Bulwark really hate Ohio Republican senate nominee JD Vance. (“Trump’s Hillbilly” — they literally called him that.) So this morning, Bill Kristol and fellow Bulwark Operative Tim Miller endorsed his Democratic opponent. “If you voted for Matt Dolan, a totally inoffensive Republican in this primary and don’t want literal authoritarianism advanced by a charlatan who is at the mercy of Donald Trump’s whims go ahead a sign up to support inoffensive Democrat@TimRyan.”
Some say the end-state of Never Trump is becoming a full-on Democrat. I would argue these guys were closet Democrats all along.
Like Glenn Youngkin, Vance is too “Trumpian” for the bull-workers, too aligned to those grubby working-class folk who are upset about irrelevant issues like children being exposed to pornography in public schools, the unchecked import and distribution of deadly narcotics across our wide-open southern border, the mass export of American manufacturing jobs to China, and the replacement of American workers with cheap foreign labor.
In fairness, JD Vance was once a harsh critic of Donald Trump. But, like most reasonable people, his opinion on Trump evolved more favorably as President Trump showed himself to be a consistent advocate and advancer of conservative policies.
Speaking of advancing conservative policies, the New York Times token “conservative” Bret Stephen — who previously pitched the not-at-all radical left idea of repealing the second amendment — now says that a true conservative would not overturn Roe v. Wade. Stephens’s argument is — I am not making this up — that even though Roe was a terrible decision, it’s now precedent and overturning it would be “disruptive” to the political status quo. It would also upset leftists and reduce the esteem of the High Court in public perception.
As conservatives, you are philosophically bound to give considerable weight to judicial precedents, particularly when they have been ratified and refined — as Roe was by the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision — over a long period.
So, Stephens must likewise think the court erred in overturning Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Korematsu v. United States for the same reason.
Here, again, you may be tempted to think that overturning Roe is an act of judicial modesty that puts abortion disputes in the hands of legislatures. Maybe — after 30 years of division and mayhem.
Yes, Stephens is literally arguing that conservatives should not want the issue of abortion decided by elected representatives in state legislatures. Maybe Stephens views himself as merely being “prudent,” because the effects of a Roe repeal would be so wide-ranging and unpredictable. But this “principled conservative” notion that the role of conservatism is to preserve the gains of liberalism is precisely why the old Bush-Republican model is dying. And why Bret Stephens and Bill Kristol are reduced to sputtering about “populism” while collecting checks from their left-wing paymasters.
Published in Politics
Interesting that the Bullwork has a problem with that, isn’t it?
Personally, I think they are just grifters who were no longer able to grift the right and so switched sides to grift the left.
I think they know that no one takes them seriously and they have zero influence, but I don’t think they care as long as their patrons checks clear.
Is that bilious?
Well, I have far more important things to focus on today, which is “Star Wars Day: May the Fourth Be With You!”
To use the current parlance, those guys know what time it is. For those into podcasts, their American Mind podcast is good.
You dodged my perfectly legitimate question. Again.
Why do you do that? I just asked what’s wrong with the Claremont Institute. You dismissed the entire piece because it came from the Claremont Institute. So you must have some issue with them. Running away tells me you have no answer — which I accept as a win.
Doing other stuff, but here is an article about the sad decline of the Claremont Institute. https://www.thebulwark.com/what-the-hell-happened-to-the-claremont-institute/.
About the infamous John Eastman an architect of Trump’s attack on the election on January 6, 2021, the article states:
“After the mob attack of January 6, Professor Eastman, under pressure, resigned from his faculty position at Chapman University. He was also stripped of his public duties at the University of Colorado Boulder (for which action he is reportedly preparing to sue).
“But one place where he is still welcome is the Claremont Institute. Eastman is a senior fellow at the four-decade-old conservative think tank; a member of its board of directors; and the founding director of its Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a shingle under which he sporadically files lawsuits and amicus briefs. When Eastman resigned from Chapman, he defended himself in the American Mind, a Claremont web magazine. In Claremont’s flagship publication, the Claremont Review of Books (CRB), one of the institute’s foremost scholars, Charles C. Kesler, defended him in turn. Eastman may be persona non grata at institutions wary of anti-democratic conspiracy theorists, but at the Claremont Institute he fits right in.”
At least one familiar face among their new fellows . . .
These fantasies were appropriate for the 70s.
Scoop Jackson exists in your imagination, only.
You need to work within the populist momentum and figure out how to is it the other way. People are populist for actual reasons.
Can you articulate why people are populist and socialist so much these days?
Haven’t you heard? Dr. Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, has been declared the #1 enemy of “our democracy” by a major publication (Salon). He’s a Claremont guy.
I really can’t comment on how disgusting I find it when people supposedly on our side either inadvertently or vertently support the Left. I’d get banned from R> for personal attacks and foul language.
Ha ha ha! From the BULWARK!
How can you conclude differently if you look at Kristol’s rhetoric? Reportedly he’s making millions with I think her name is Sarah Longwell.
Star Wars is a lot like the Republican party; both have gone downhill since the end of the Reagan Administration; both were bought out by major corporations who alienated their base; and both are only relevant to a few die-hard true believers.
Well, I for one am turning in my “Reagan Republican” card. Oh, I was a Reagan Republican, but lately I am getting pretty uncomfortable with the neocons who hijacked the moniker. Kristol, the Lincoln Project pedophiles, and the Bulwark are not company with which I wish to be associated.
Yeah, I’m a “Reagan liberal” now.
Anyone who knows Ohio politics is aware that Tim Ryan is a bombastic demagogue cut from the same cloth as the State’s other senator, Sherrod Brown. Despite all his crapola about being a “champion of the working man and woman”, Ryan is totally in the pocket of the Progressive Left.
The Left is flooding the State with dark money. I suspect Ryan’s advertising will be shrill (and false). Vance will need to hit Ryan fast and hard.
Vance is going to have to fight his own party, too.
The Republicans who insist that we vote for their GOPe squishes “because it’s a binary choice” are quick to endorse Democrats when they don’t get their squish candidates nominated.
I’m a bit suspicious of both Mandel and Gibbons. Both of them spent a ton of money on negative (really ugly) advertising. Hopefully, they’ll fall into line but Vance would be wise to watch his six.
OK, all you non-Buckeyes.
A few observations from someone who actually voted in yesterday’s primary:
If the Bulwarkians are truly interested in re-capturing their place as conservatives inside the Republican Party they should keep their freaking mouths shut. Any snide remark from Bill Kristol & Co. is a badge of honor, the anti-endorsement endorsement. The fact that they can’t do that simply reveals that their previous embrace of the party had the crackle of Confederate dollars.
The choice is always clear to the people that don’t have to make them. But besides Vance, the alternatives weren’t all that great.
Mike Gibbons was Mitt Romney writ small. A millionaire investment banker from Cleveland he had his Mittens Moment by declaring that middle-class Americans don’t pay “any kind of a fair share” of income taxes. He might as well have put a puppy in a burlap bag, tied a rock around it and thrown it into Lake Erie on live television.
Josh Mandel was just as Trumpy as Vance but, unlike J.D., he was part of the GOP establishment. He was the State Treasurer, lost the Senate seat once before, ran again and quit (his wife had cancer) and was running for a third time. He had an annoying email campaign that turned off more than a few voters.
Jane Timken married into the family of the Ball Bearing Barons. Her only previous foray into politics was being chair of the state party. Her campaign was virtually non-existent. She finished a distant 5th.
And that brings us to Billy’s favorite, Matt Dolan. While Vance and Mandel were off fighting Billy’s unnecessary war in Iraq with the Marines, Matty was a front office boy for the Cleveland Indians. His father, one of the patriarchs of the 54th richest family in America, is the team’s owner. And nothing says “I will fight for you and your beloved traditions” like participating in the slow-motion collapse of the Tribe into the “Guardians.” First, Chief Wahoo and then the name gone to the whiney woke witch-hunters. So the northern half of the state roots for a set of statues on the Hope Memorial Bridge and is stuck with a logo that looks like the third place winner in a high school design contest.
OK, opine away at how you would have done something you weren’t tasked to decide.
Don’t forget that Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment when Mandel and Gibbons were going to duke it out on the debate stage. Probably the high point of the debate.
Doesn’t it just evoke Cleveland?
Until today, I never noticed how much Larry Hogan looks and sounds just like Elmer Fudd.
No. Akron.
The real Elmer J. Fudd was the actor Arthur Q. Bryan, so, yeah.
Bile and hatred is all that the Bulwark does. Why don’t you condemn their scurilous name calling of JD Vance as Trump’s Hillbilly?!!!
You are a total hypocrite if you don’t.
I used to wonder about the hatred, the reason. Then, it hit me: Petty jealousy. Nothing more. The guy has lived large all his life, and by his own rules. Made, lost and re-made fortunes. Ran for President and got elected, and that was his first try at elected office. Turned the political world upside down. For all his flaws, he was the best president of my lifetime in a photo-finish ahead of Saint Ronald. And then of course, there is Melania. I despise NTs and others who hate him, but since I’ve been redacted before for describing how much, I’ll leave it at that.
Thank you, EJ. Good perspective.
Tim Ryan opining on the day’s news,
Where has Tim Ryan voted different than Pelosi when it mattered ?
Didn’t the Bulwark and you claim Good Old Joe Biden will bring us back to the norms?
Ryan is another Biden without the dementia
On what Policy do you agree with Ryan?
That’s weird-looking toilet paper.
Like all super-clever lawyers, he asked a question he already knew the answer to.
Drew, you woke up today under a blue sky, correct?